Saturn’s moon Enceladus harbours chemical energy for life: NASA

Washington, April 14: Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus has a form of chemical energy that life can feed on, researchers with NASAs Cassini mission to Saturn have revealed.

“Confirmation that the chemical energy for life exists within the ocean of a small moon of Saturn is an important milestone in our search for habitable worlds beyond Earth,” said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

In a separate study, scientists also reported additional evidence of water vapour plumes erupting from Jupiter’s moon Europa.

Together, the findings suggest that these active ocean worlds in our solar system are worth more exploration in our search for life beyond the Earth.

The study from researchers with the Cassini mission, published in the journal Science, indicates hydrogen gas — which could potentially provide a chemical energy source for life — is pouring into the subsurface ocean of Enceladus from hydrothermal activity on the seafloor.

The presence of ample hydrogen in the moon’s ocean means that microbes — if any exist there — could use it to obtain energy by combining the hydrogen with carbon dioxide dissolved in the water.

This chemical reaction, known as “methanogenesis” because it produces methane as a byproduct, is at the root of the tree of life on the Earth, and could even have been critical to the origin of life on our planet.

Life as we know it requires three primary ingredients: liquid water; a source of energy for metabolism; and the right chemical ingredients, primarily carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous and sulphur.
With this finding, Cassini has shown that Enceladus — a small, icy moon a billion miles farther from the Sun than the Earth — has nearly all of these ingredients for habitability.

Cassini has not yet shown phosphorous and sulphur are present in the ocean, but scientists suspect them to be, since the rocky core of Enceladus is thought to be chemically similar to meteorites that contain the two elements.

The Cassini spacecraft detected the hydrogen in the plume of gas and icy material spraying from Enceladus during its last, and deepest, dive through the plume on October 28, 2015.

Cassini also sampled the plume’s composition during flybys earlier in the mission.

From these observations scientists have determined that nearly 98 per cent of the gas in the plume is water, about one per cent is hydrogen and the rest is a mixture of other molecules including carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia.

At the same time, NASA scientists have also reported additional evidence of water vapour plumes erupting from Jupiter’s moon Europa.

The paper detailing new Hubble space telescope findings, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, reports on observations of Europa from 2016 in which a probable plume of material was seen erupting from the moon’s surface at the same location where Hubble saw evidence of a plume in 2014.

These images bolster evidence that the Europa plumes could be a real phenomenon, flaring up intermittently in the same region on the moon’s surface.

Researchers speculate that, like Enceladus, this could be evidence of water erupting from the moon’s interior.
NASA’s will send a probe called Europa Clipper mission, which is planned for launch in the 2020s, to search signs of life on the Jupiter’s moon by flying through those plumes.

“If there are plumes on Europa, as we now strongly suspect, with the Europa Clipper we will be ready for them,” said Jim Green, Director of Planetary Science, at NASA Headquarters.

The new “ASUS Zenbook Flip S UX370” comes with a 13.3-inch full-HD display with touch screen.

“With the ‘ASUS Zenbook Flip S UX370’, it becomes a perfect companion for those looking for stylish and powerful notebook for daily use,” Arnold Su, Business Development Manager, ASUS India, said in a statement.

The device is a mere 11.2mm and weighs just 1.1 kg, the company claimed in a statement.

It comes with ErgoLift hinge — one of the world’s most compact 360 degree hinges — that features a precision-engineered multigear metal mechanism, with a silky-smooth, stepless action that holds the display securely at any angle.

The two USB-C ports on the device support external 4K UHD displays, power delivery and data transfer — all via the reversible, any-way-up USB-C connector.

Moto Z2 Force: Sturdy all-rounder but dated 16:9 display

New Delhi, March 19: Lenovo-owned Motorola’s latest premium offering Moto Z2 Force, with dual rear cameras, is here and the company is selling it as a phone with a shatter-proof display.

Moto Z2 Force essentially replaces the original Moto Z with Moto “ShatterShield” technology as its USP and a bundled Moto “TurboPower mod pack” in India for Rs 34,999.

How does the smartphone fare when it comes to everyday usage? Here is our review.

The smartphone has a 5.5-inch Quad HD AMOLED shatterproof screen that did withstand drops and falls during our review test from approximately 3-4 feet height.

Despite being launched in 2018, the device features 16:9 aspect ratio that is now outdated as other flagships such as Galaxy S9, OnePlus 5T and Honor View10 are now offering a better 18:9 display — and this might be a put-off for those who want more a immersive experience.

Having said that, the good colour reproduction and viewing angles of the display mostly make up for the loss of screen space. It was bright with decent sunlight legibility.

The front of the phone is dominated by thick bezels above and below the screen, which was also present in the original Moto Z. This is because the company had promised that at least three generations of Moto Z phones would be compatible with the original “Moto Mod” — a clip-on accessory that transforms Moto Z Force into a super-zoom camera, a boombox, a projector and more.

There is an earpiece above the AMOLED screen that also houses the loudspeaker.

There is a 5MP selfie camera with a flash which was capable of taking decent self portraits.

Moto Z2 Force is comfortable to hold and for single-handed use but feels slippery when used without a Mod or a protective case.

The device is made of 7000 series aluminium which made the exterior look both tough and appealing. An added advantage of water-repellent nano-coating is there to protect the device from accidental spills or splashes.

Motorola has added features such as “one-button” navigation, “double chop” gesture to turn the flashlight on or off, twist the phone to launch the camera and take screenshot by placing three fingers on the screen, among others.

Coming to its performance, the Moto Z2 Force is powered by a Snapdragon 835 chipset which is the same as in OnePlus 5T device.

The phone offered snappy performance most of the time and the fingerprint sensor below the display interested us the most.

The phone can be put to sleep with a long-press and the same button can unlock the device.

What does not work?

The absence of weather-proofing could be a major put-off for most users.

We also noticed that the display was extremely prone to scratches even as it doesn’t shatter or crack easily.

Conclusion: This is undoubtedly a well-built device with Motorola’s promise of timely updates. If you are looking for a sturdy device with stock Android experience, go for it.

‘Secret police’ chasing information leakers at Facebook: Report

San Francisco, March 17: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly deployed “secret police” to catch and punish information leakers at his company.

According to a report in The Guardian, an unnamed employee was called to a meeting in 2017 under the guise of a promotion. However, he found himself face to face with the secretive “rat-catching” team led by Sonya Ahuja, the company’s head of investigations.

The team had records of screenshots he had taken, links he had clicked or hovered over.

The “secret police” also accessed chats between him and a journalist dating back to before he joined the company.

“It’s horrifying how much they know. You go into Facebook and it has this warm, fuzzy feeling of ‘we’re changing the world’ and ‘we care about things’.

“But you get on their bad side and all of a sudden you are face to face with [Facebook CEO] Mark Zuckerberg’s secret police,” the employee told The Guardian.

According to the report, Zuckerberg hosts weekly meetings where he shares details of unreleased new products and strategies in front of thousands of employees.

“When you first get to Facebook you are shocked at the level of transparency. You are trusted with a lot of stuff you don’t need access to,” the employee was quoted as saying.

During one of Zuckerberg’s weekly meetings in 2015, said the report, he had warned employees: “We’re going to find the leaker, and we’re going to fire them.”

According to a Facebook spokesperson, “companies routinely use business records in workplace investigations, and we are no exception”.

Not just Facebook, James Damore, the software engineer who was fired from Google after writing a controversial anti-diversity memo, “suspects he was being monitored by the company during his final days”.

James Damore stopped using his personal Gmail account after being fired, said the report.